Alone
by Ninja1234
Summary: "He didn't notice the filmy wire as he inched closer. And closer. Until-" My slightly AU take of just how Nico ended up in the bronze jar. When you're done, press the enticing little button on the bottom. Yes, that one.


**HI!**

**I'm taekwon1004kr! I just recently joined.**

**This story is my take on Nico getting captured by Gaea, and is slightly AU. So, enjoy! AND REVIEW!**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I am not a middle-aged man making millions off of a book series.**

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Nico di Angelo scowled as he navigated his way through the busy streets of Rome. He had sensed the scent of death here. He scanned his surroundings again. Yes, this was the place. He was sure of it. He'd gone over the evidence hundreds of times, and was confident in the info he'd piled together.

Yet, something seemed, as Percy would put it, fishy.

Speaking of Percy...Nico wondered how his older cousin was doing. The Argo II would have landed sometime around yesterday. He hoped that the son of Poseidon had received his memories. Annabeth would kill her boyfriend if the two of them were back at square one.

But he digressed. According to his compiled tidbits and hopefully reliable facts, the Doors of Death should be nearby. It was logical.

But then, a demigod's life was anything BUT logical.

Two days, three hours, two minutes, and twenty-four seconds.

That's how long he'd been searching in this city, the capital of Italy, and he still hadn't found any sign. The Doors were here. They just had to be! If not...Nico quickly moved on to another thought, one that didn't cause him to doubt.

Where would the Doors lead? One way to it was somewhere here, if he could just find it. But where was the exit placed?

No help was coming for him anytime soon. He'd only told Hazel, his resurrected half-sister. Or was it his one-third sister? This Greek-Roman stuff gave him a serious headache. But he'd made it very clear to the daughter of Pluto that his mission was to be strictly solo.

"I shouldn't have done that," the son of Hades muttered to himself. "Someone suffering with me is better than being miserable on my own."

He immediately chastised himself for thinking such things. "Don't get off track," he reminded himself. "The fate of the world's at stake here. Everyone's counting on you. Er- at least, they would be if they knew," he finished lamely.

The pale Italian shuffled through town, remaining in the shadows. No one acknowledged him, or even came over, and he was totally cool with that. It was the norm everywhere. Be ignored and ignore. Be singled out as a victim to shunning and deal with it.

Oh, if only they knew. When he succeeded in this quest, he could rub it smugly in their shocked faces, and tell them how wrong they were for doubting him. But that wouldn't happen in a long time.

People stared at him too; stared at the pale, depressed looking, scrawny little boy dressed in black. If Nico wasn't treated as the Invisible Man, he was the circus spectacle. He grimaced as he imagined that insufferable ringmaster's voice announcing, "Now presenting: Nico di Angelo! The Emo kid who does nothing but sit there acting moody and glare at you!"

He wasn't _that_bad. Was he?

"Focus, Nico!" he chided. "Back to the topic at hand!"

Scowling yet again, he kicked a rock. It made a muffled thump as it came down to earth. Wincing, he quickly apologized to the rock nymph, hoping that it would suffice. Then he looked up.

Darn. He was the same forest he'd started at. Groaning, he leaned against a tree, not caring if the nymph got angry this time.

"Why do you hate me so much, gods?" Nico muttered, punching his fists on the caked dirt.

Oh yeah. He wasn't supposed to exist.

"One hint," Nico begged. "Just ONE-" he kicked the ground. "-stupid-" -kick- "-little-" -kick- "hint?"

Worn out, he collapsed against the tree, sliding to a fetal position. "Come on Dad," he whispered. "If you love me, love me _at all_, can't you help me?"

No skeletons rose, no shadows came to his aid with clues.

Nico buried his face in his hands. "I'm so sorry everyone." He imagined the hurt, terrified, panicked looks he would receive as he and both camps sank into the earth like objects in molasses. He flinched. "I can't do this."

He thought about Bianca. Bianca always knew what to do.

"Oh, Nico," she'd tut disapprovingly, adjusting her floppy green cap, "I'm sure that you know the answer. It's in your gut. You're just looking too hard."

That's what she'd always said. "You've already been there," she used to say when they played "Where Is It?", the di Angelo way.

"Already been there...looking too hard..." Bianca's voice seemed to rustle and fade in the trees like the wind.

Maybe it was a sign! Nico started to think.

"Okay. So I've already been there...I'm overcomplicating things...What's the one place I wouldn't think about that I've already visited?"

He started to count off on his bony fingers. "The Underworld makes no sense, Westover, maybe-" He continued to rattle off the names.

After a few more, it hit him harder than Thalia's static shocks.

It was the one place that terrified him, the one place infested with monsters and spirits and the evilest of evil whose purpose was to destroy demigods. The place he'd only been to once, and had barely made it out, all the while wishing that he would never have to go back again.

_Tartarus._

Nico got up. "I know the answer!" he murmured excitedly. "I've got to find them!" He took some steps. "I've got to-" He tripped carelessly over a stick.

ZIP!

A tangled mess of rope enveloped Nico, hoisting him up into a net dangling on the tree. Just then, the ghost king noticed the filmy, almost invisible cord.

Tripwire.

He cursed. How could he have been so ignorant? He wriggled around, attempting to free himself.

Footsteps. He stopped trying to get out and started to panic.

They were getting closer, and closer.

A massive hand reached out and stuck some cloth over Nico's face. A blindfold.

"We got him, Ephialtes! We got him!" a voice shouted gleefully.

"Shut up or others might hear you!" another voice snapped.

Nico felt himself getting roughly tossed right-side up.

"Well, well," the second voice sneered, "the son of Hades, hm? Don't know how this pile of skin and bones is going to be useful."

"Mother said-"

"It was rhetorical, Otis!" the voice snarled, then returned to a softer tone after some heavy breathing. "We'll just have to do as she orders."

Nico found himself getting tugged, falling, then hitting a cold surface. The blindfold slipped off.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw long, rounded ceramic walls surrounding him, growing higher and higher, at least five feet.

He was trapped in a bronze jar.

"Spend your time wisely, Hades spawn," one of the captors, Ephialtes, crooned, "because _you don't have many left_."

The lid was fastened. Darkness engulfed the demigod.

Nico was all alone.

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**If you read the Mark of Athena, you know what happens after that... LOVE IT? HATE IT? WANNA TORTURE ME FOR WRITING AN INFERIOR PIECE OF JUNK? Please don't say the last one, but tell me what you think!**


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